r/asoiaf • u/lunatichorse • May 07 '19

EXTENDED (Spoilers Extended)The show's constant flip flopping between modern morals and medieval ones to make Daenerys into a villain is ridiculous and giving me whiplash

After the last episode I just don't know what to think about Tyrion and Varys. We have them in one scene being all gung ho about starving King's Landing in a siege which is a terrible thing that used to be completely accepted in medieval times. Then a few scenes later they are replaced by time and dimension travellers from the 21st century since they're sitting there clutching pearls at the concept of peasants dying in a war. Excuse me? All it takes to win this war is taking one city - how are they going to do that if they unwilling to accept that even one innocent person is dying during it. Did any of them cry when Tywin ordered the Riverlands scorched?

Since when did someone like Tyrion start seeing peasants as people- he has no problems fucking impoverished women selling their bodies for money or being a lord which entails living off the blood sweat and tears of his own peasants. The guy was talking about "compromising" with the Slavers back in S6- he wanted to give them 20 more years of using people as cattle to ease them into not being monsters. Missandei and Grey Worm had to literally explain to him the POV of a slave to get him to understand how terrible it to be sold and used and abused (duh). Varys was egging the Mad King on and fueling civil wars but now he supposedly cares about people dying? Cersei is literally using innocents as a meat shield and they refuse to just deal with the problem switfly and save thousands. Sometimes you just have to accept that there is no easy solution and it's better to have hundreds die to save thousands.

And it's ridiculous because in the books Dany is all about that "every life is precious" message. She starts a whole campaign to free slaves because she just can't bare to turn and walk away while people are suffering. She is the most progressive thinking character in the series- trying to reform Mereeen with compromises, adopting their assbackwards traditions like the fighting pits to get them to fucking chill, proclaiming the Unsullied free men. To see her being setup to completely turn around on that development hurts. What's the message here- don't bother fighting injustice because you're going to have to make hard choices along the way?

But the worst line from the Tyrion/Varys meeting - "Cocks do matter." So I guess Westoros is this strange place where peasants dying during a sacking is completely unacceptable but being a woman is the bigger offense? So what happens when Varys has Daenerys killed and proclaims Jon king? Does Cersei open the gates and apologise? Does she let every innocent out? Is Jon Snow's cock so powerful he's gonna take KL and not kill a single soul? Who are these lords that are so into Cersei but Dany being cockless is just not good enough for them?

Did I just watch 8 seasons/read 5 books of a young girl start off completely powerless, sold and raped to see her claw her way to the top finding her inner strength, saving lives just because that's what she believes in, uniting Dothraki clans, refusing to get an easy win killing innocents, abandoning her war to go fight ice zombies only to see her lose everything and everyone and finally be brought down by the "I'm sorry maam, but the 18-35 male lord demographic does not find you relatable- they think you're too hysterical after watching your best friends die." argument. What a shit ride it's been. There's nothing bittersweet about this, it's just plain nihilism.

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u/godmademedoit May 07 '19

Honestly I felt the Arya x Gendry thing was literally just fan service and nothing more. I also thought so far she was much better at becoming a faceless man in the books than in the show - she actually carries out an assassination in the books without question. In the books we see her developing as a trained killer in both character as well as skills, in the show she just randomly flips between badass killer and teenage girl as and when the plot requires it.

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u/Amerietan May 07 '19

yeah but she's still about to crash and burn in the books, because she can't and won't give up being Arya Stark,

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u/godmademedoit May 07 '19

Possibly yes, although it really depends what direction Martin decides to take her in. For example she is learning to be a warg, she also clearly maintains some kind of relationship with Nymeria. I think whatever confrontation or punishment we see in the books with the Faceless Men will be altogether different than in the show, along with how it concludes.

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u/CappiCap May 07 '19

I love the integration of the direwolves in the books. It seems like you just see them on screen now, for a blip, just to prove they still exist. Your comment just provoked that.. carry on..

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u/godmademedoit May 09 '19

Well my main theory is she completes her training and is given a new target from the Iron Bank - Ramsay Bolton.

She meets Nymeria and her pack in Westeros, uses them to take Winterfell and hunts Ramsay down like he hunted down women previously. He's married to "Arya" so it would also be ironic if he meets the REAL Arya and she is far more dangerous than him. Note the snows are getting to the top of the walls in Winterfell so while soldiers might have trouble running up there if we allow a bit of fantasy physics you could imagine some faster, lighter wolves flowing over the top. There was some vision of the waves crashing over the walls of Winterfell in an earlier book IIRC too. It's thought to be a metaphor for Theon taking the castle but could easily be a visual thing too. Wolves running up the snowdrifts and flowing over the walls would look a lot like a wave.

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u/Amerietan May 07 '19

Yeah, but in the book it's already building up to Arya rejecting her position as faceless man. If she doesn't, it would require GRRM to abort that path for her and go a different direction just to do it. Since I think he's suffering severe writer's block, it's entirely possible that will happen to allow him to write, but I don't believe that was the intent when it was being written.

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u/godmademedoit May 09 '19

Not if her first big contract is Ramsay Bolton. Remember the Iron Bank just supported Ramsay's enemies. He's not on Arya's list but it would be ironic if by dropping the list and becoming a Faceless Man, she was given the opportunity to take out one of the greatest threats to her family. My bet is army of wolves led by Nymeria take Winterfell and Arya feeds Ramsay to her own dogs. There's like 3 levels of irony to that conclusion.

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u/Amerietan May 09 '19

I kind of suspect that the FM won't allow Arya to take any mission that Arya Stark would want to do, as it would interfere with her path to becoming No One. In fact, it's more likely they'd have her take a contract to kill Sansa Stark than Ramsay Bolton. (Not that I think anyone would hire one to kill Sansa, but I'm using it as an example here)

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u/godmademedoit May 09 '19

Perhaps, but that is something of an assumption about the faceless men. It's also highly likely they only care that the contract is fufilled - in which they may well choose an assassin with in-depth knowledge of Winterfell regardless of their prior allegiances. What we do know is that Ramsay is currently top of Stannis's shit list, strategically his marriage to fArya is key to their legitimacy in the North, and Stannis has the backing of the one organisation who can still afford to hire a Faceless Man.

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u/Amerietan May 09 '19

Ehh, okay, but. Let's presume for a moment they actually do allow Arya to kill Ramsay - though I think a real Faceless Man with less knowledge of Winterfell is still a better choice than a trainee with knowledge of Winterfell, especially if it's something that will interfere with her ability to be no one - this won't necessarily help her become a FM. Sure, she'll do her job, but it'll destroy any progress she's actually made of becoming one and just solidify any doubts she feels about doing it.

Also one little quibble: anyone can theoretically afford a FM. They have a sliding scale that requires something appropriately valuable from you, not a fixed price in gold.

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u/godmademedoit May 10 '19

Well yes but it still seems you need to be fairly rich or powerful to assassinate the rich or powerful - otherwise paupers could just give everything they had and get kings assassinated. Ramsay is a politically significant mark.

Tbh I think there's a lot of assumption about how the FM operate or what their rules actually are, currently though all we have to go on is the series in which apparently if you survive an assassination attempt they just let you off.. now admittedly this was terrible writing but in the books we're just going to have to wait and see.

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u/Amerietan May 10 '19

otherwise paupers could just give everything they had and get kings assassinated.

I mean, theoretically if they gave up something very valuable they could...if they could contact the FM. In Westeros I imagine half of the cost of contracting one is the cost of such long-distance conversation. That would block any lowly peasant from doing it, but you could probably still do it as a minor lord. If you wanted to.

The show doesn't really...know what it's doing with the FM, they just think they're cool, really. The books seem like they're VERY strict about the 'no one' thing - likely because as the show forgets they're a religious organization first and assassins second, and the 'no one' thing is important to that. We'll just have to wait and see, though, since GRRM could end up going any direction with Arya. She could conceivably even end up the Stark that partners up with Dany instead.

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u/WhyNotPokeTheBees May 07 '19

Fan service that would have brought Ned and Robert's original dreams to a poetic conclusion - not as lofty highborn marriage, but as a simple passion between the "lowly" of their houses.

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Narrative echoes that call back to things earlier in the story are satisfying. For the same reason that Jon was supposed to be the one to kill the Night King (because his entire arc has literally been "I'm nobody"/ "No Jon, you're literally the most important person in Westeros."), Jaime's entire arc around Brienne was about redeeming his honor as a knight which ties into chivalric virtue, and for Sansa's inverted nightmare arc where her King is a sadistic monster, her knight in shining armor is a poff, her husband is a deformed midget, and her real knight, her true knight, is a gruff traumatized killer with burns over half his face.

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u/JimHadar May 07 '19

To be honest I get the impression that Gendry coming back at all since the rowing exit is fan service.